in
the breast of her favourite maid, who leaned upon the armchair of her
mistress, she uttered with a sob, dovelike in its sadness, "Oh, my dear
Nofre, I am very sad and very unhappy!"

II

Nofre, anticipating some confidence, made a sign, and the harpist, the
two musicians, the dancers, and the maids silently withdrew one by one,
like the figures painted on frescoes. When the last had gone, the
favourite said to her mistress in a petting, sympathetic tone, like a
young mother soothing her child's tender grief,--

"What is the matter, dear mistress, that you are sad and unhappy? Are
you not young, so fair that the loveliest envy you, and free to do what
you please? And did not your father, the high-priest Petamounoph, whose
mummy rests concealed within a rich tomb,--did he not leave you great
wealth to do with as you please? Your palace is splendid, your gardens
vast and watered by transparent streams, your coffers of enamelled ware
and sycamore wood are filled with necklaces, pectorals, neck-plates,
anklets, finely wrought seal-rings. Your gowns, your calasiris, your
head-dresses are greater in number than the days of the year. Hopi, the
father of waters, regularly covers with his fertilising mud your
domains, which a vulture flying at top speed could scarce traverse from
sunrise to sunrise. And yet your heart, instead of opening joyously like
a lotus bud in the month of Hathor or of Choeak, closes and contracts
painfully."

Tahoser answered Nofre:--

"Yes, indeed, the gods of the higher zones have treated me favourably.
But what matter one's possessions if one lacks the one thing desired? An
unsatisfied wish makes the rich as poor, in his gilded, brightly painted
palace, in the midst of his heaps of grain, of perfumes and precious
things, as the most wretched workman of the Memnonia, who sops up with
sawdust the blood of the bodies, or the semi-nude negro driving on the
Nile his frail papyrus-boat under the burning midday sun."

Nofre smiled, and said with a look of imperceptible raillery,--

"Is it possible, O mistress, that a single one of your fancies has not
been fulfilled at once? If you want a jewel, you give the workman an
ingot of pure gold, cornelians, lapis-lazuli, agates, and hematite, and
he carries out the wished-for design. It is the same way with gowns,
cars, perfumes, flowers, and musical instruments. From Philae to
Heliopolis your slaves seek out for you what is most beautiful and most